A Taiwanese-Japanese joint research team has created a fluorescent silicone that glows using chemical principles similar to the bioluminescence behind the famous “blue tears” of the Matsu Islands.
National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University (NYCU) in a news release said a team of university researchers, in collaboration with the Japanese Osaka Institute of Technology, used silicone to suspend nanoglass vessels containing fluorescent solutions.
This non-toxic substance is free of heavy metals and could potentially be utilized for a wide range of applications, including display, sensing and wearable technology, the university said.
Photo: CNA
The discovery came as an accident after a student lab technician made an experimental silicone material glow through compression and stretching, the university cited NYCU biotechnology associate professor and study coauthor Lee Ming-chia (李明家) as saying.
Researchers made the association between the material’s unusual properties and bioluminescent phenomenon, leading to investigations that showed comparable principles, he said.
Unlike conventional substances utilized for illumination, the silicone itself did not glow, but the molecules contained in the flexible material would create light if they came into close proximity with each other, Lee said.
When the molecules move together, they rotate and move in a coordinated, waltz-like pattern that allows light to emerge and travel through the substance, he was cited as saying.
The research team, using molecular design, synthesis technology and high-temperature furnaces, were able to bind fluorescent molecules with a suspension, then placed them inside nanometer-sized helical quartz cells, the university said.
The minuscule glass vessels were then inserted into silicone, creating the material, it said.
“The mechanism represents an entirely new strategy for producing light, opening the door to flexible, environmentally friendly optical materials,” it said. “One of the material’s most significant features is its ability to generate circularly polarized light, a key technology widely regarded as critical for next-generation 3D imaging and advanced display systems.”
The research was published in the ACS Materials Au Journal in 2023, and was featured on the publication’s “hot article” list in November last year, it said.
Additional reporting by Yang Mien-chieh
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